How India's Longest Road-Rail Bridge Bolsters Defence On China Border

The Bogibeel bridge has been designed to bear the weight of India's heaviest 60 tonne battle tanks and so that fighter jets can land on it.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated India's longest rail-road bridge in Assam as part of efforts to boost defence along the border with China.

PM Modi drove in a cavalcade along the 4.9 kilometre long Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra river to inaugurate the project which has taken nearly two decades and $800 million or Rs 5,600 crore to complete.

The bridge, near the city of Dibrugarh, will enable the military to speed up the dispatch of forces to neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh, which borders China.

With the opening of the bridge, the rail journey from Dibrugarh to the Arunachal Pradesh capital Itanagar has been cut by 750 kilometres.

The bridge has been designed to bear the weight of India's heaviest 60 tonne battle tanks and so that fighter jets can land on it.

India opened its longest bridge, the 9.1 kilometre Dhola-Sadiya bridge, in 2017 to connect Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, also to boost tactical defences.

Construction of the Bogibeel bridge was agreed by the government as part of a 1985 agreement to end years of deadly agitation by Assamese nationalist groups.